Claimants to Royalty

by John Henry Ingram

On the 9th of May, 1859, this pretender died, but unfortunately his pretensions did not die with him. He left two sons, of whom the elder, known to the public generally as William Meves, has published several ungrammatical and illogical works respecting his alleged royal lineage, under the assumed name of "Auguste de Bourbon."

THE FALSE DAUPHINS: ELEAZAR WILLIAMS.

The story of this impostor has been a favourite theme with American magazines, some of which, indeed, have sought to throw an air of probability about his pretensions. And, indeed, ridiculous as this pretender's tale may seem, it would be dangerous to aver that it is more absurd than those told by some of his rival claimants to the rank and name of "Louis the Seventeenth." During the years 1853 and 1854, a series of papers on the claims of the Rev. Eleazar Williams to be considered as the deceased dauphin were published in Putnam's Magazine, and in the latter year the Rev. J. H. Hanson published a work entitled "The Lost Prince," purporting to contain "Facts tending to prove the identity of Louis the Seventeenth of France and the Rev. Eleazar Williams, Missionary to the Indians."

In order to account for the strangeness of the story told, the biographer carries his records back to 1795, when a family styling themselves De Jardin are said to have arrived in Albany from France. The family consisted of a Madame de Jardin, who appeared to be a personage of some distinction, and a man who passed as this lady's husband, but really appeared to be her servant, from the deferential manner in which he treated her; and two children, a boy and a girl. There appeared to be a considerable amount of mystery connected with these children, or at all events with the boy, who was about ten years of age, was always alluded to as "Monsieur Louis," and in whom visitors had no difficulty in discovering a resemblance to portraits of the French royal family. Madame de Jardin acknowledged that she had been maid of honour to Marie Antoinette, and still retained in her possession several relics of her unfortunate mistress. The De Jardins did not inform their neighbours what had brought them to Albany, and, what was still more tantalizing, they suddenly departed without saying why they went away.

The next episode, although showing no very clear connection with the De Jardin mystery, is suggestively allocated with it as its sequel. It tells how, later in the year 1795, two French strangers, having with them a sickly boy of about ten years of age, visited the Iroquois settlement at Ticonderoga, near Lake George. This boy was left in charge of Thomas Williams, a chief of the Iroquois settlement, who adopted him and brought him up in the same way as his own eight children, giving him the name of Lazar, the Iroquois equivalent for Eleazar. All went smoothly for three or four years, during which period Eleazar, who was little better than an imbecile, forgot his French, and remembered little or nothing of the past. Some few incidents of a noteworthy character, however, occurred. One day two strangers visited the settlement, and whilst one stood aside the other met Eleazar, and embraced him, and shed a plenteous supply of tears over him. He talked a good deal to Eleazar, but as he spoke French, and the boy only understood Iroquois, they could not derive much information from one another. The next day the Frenchman repeated his visit, examined Eleazar's knees and ankles, wept more tears, and, what seemed to him more reasonable, presented him with a piece of gold before he went away.

Probably the most important event, however, that happened to him during his stay at the Indian settlement occurred when he was supposed to be about fourteen. Up to that period he had been not far removed from an idiot, when having been accidentally struck on the head by a stone, his intelligence and memory were suddenly restored. Eleazar now recalled to mind visions of the past, especially recollecting a beautiful lady, attired in a splendid dress with train, and who had been accustomed to take him on her knees and play with him. Other reminiscences of a less pleasing nature were called to mind, including the figure of a threatening, ignoble, and terrible man, undoubtedly that of Simon; for when a portrait of the infamous cobbler was shown to Eleazar, he recognised it with horror.

One night Eleazar overheard a conversation between his reputed parents which revealed to him the fact that he was not their own, but only their adopted, child; but the circumstances did not, apparently, make any strong impression upon his mind, as he soon forgot it until after events recalled it. Eventually, he was sent to school at a village in Massachusetts, in the company of John, one of his reputed brothers. John could not be done much with, and returned to his Indian life, but Eleazar made good progress in his studies, became very devout, and acquired the cognomen of "the plausible boy."

Years passed by, and "the plausible boy" became a plausible man, in his time playing many parts, some of which were scarcely worthy of the descendant of a hundred kings, or even of a Christian missionary, which was the rôle he now chiefly assumed. Sometimes he was an Indian chieftain, sometimes a military spy; at one time one thing, at another time another; but through all, as he firmly believed, and as his countenance betrayed, and as the marks on his body testified, he was "the Lost Prince," the dauphin who was supposed to have perished in the Temple. If he had had any doubts left on this matter, they were all removed, according to his own account (and numbers of his faithful adherents believed in him implicitly), in October 1841, in an interview he had with the Prince de Joinville, who chanced to be travelling in the United States that year. According to the account furnished by the Rev. Eleazar Williams, who by this time appears to have taken to the missionary avocation permanently, he happened to be on board the same steamer as the French prince, who after having made inquiries about him of the captain, requested the honour of an interview. This Eleazar affably granted, and De Joinville was brought to him. "I was sitting at the time on a barrel," says plausible Eleazar; "the prince not only started with evident and involuntary surprise when he saw me, but there was great agitation in his face and manner—a slight paleness and a quivering of the lips—which I could not help remarking at the time, but which struck me more forcibly afterwards ... by contrast with his usual self-possessed manner." After paying Eleazar an amount of respect that quite surprised that plausible priest, and astonished everybody about them, the prince, upon landing at Green Bay, desired the honour of a private conversation with him at the hotel. To this request Eleazar consented, and according to his account, the interview, which was carried on in English, the prince speaking that language fluently, but a little broken, indeed, as did Eleazar himself, yet quite intelligibly, resulted in De Joinville acknowledging that the missionary was indeed the veritable dauphin, the Duke of Normandy, the legitimate heir to the crown of France and Navarre; but requesting him to solemnly resign all his rights and titles in favour of Louis Philippe, upon condition that a princely establishment should be secured to him either in America or France, at his option, and "that Louis Philippe would pledge himself on his part to secure the restoration, or an equivalent for it, of all the private property of the royal family rightfully belonging to me" [i.e. Eleazar Williams], "which had been confiscated in France during the revolution, or in any way got into other hands." But Eleazar's ancestral pride was aroused, and after informing De Joinville that he would not be the instrument of bartering away with his own hand the rights pertaining to him by birth, and sacrificing the interests of his family, he concluded by remarking that he could only give the prince the answer which De Provence gave Napoleon's envoy at Warsaw:—"Though I am in poverty and exile, I will not sacrifice my honour!"

Upon receiving this reply the prince loudly accused his guest of ingratitude for thus rejecting the overtures of the king, his father, who, he declared, was only actuated by kindness and pity, as his claim to the French throne rested on an entirely different basis to Eleazar's; that is to say, not that of hereditary descent, but of popular election. "When he spoke in this strain," avers Eleazar, "I spoke loud also, and said that as he, by his disclosure, had put me in the position of a superior, I must assume that position, and frankly say that my indignation was stirred by the memory that one of the family of Orleans had imbued his hands in my father's blood, and that another now wished to obtain from me an abdication of the throne." "When I spoke of superiority," says Eleazar, "the prince immediately assumed a respectful attitude, and remained silent for several minutes." On the following day, says "the plausible," he saw the prince again, who, finding his renewed efforts to shake the determination of the dauphin not to resign his hereditary titles were vain, bade him good-bye with the words, "Though we part, I hope we part friends."